Report: College Football Playoff committee will use current athletics directors

HOOVER, Alabama -- Current athletics directors will be used on the College Football Playoff Committee, according to The Sporting News.

The Sporting News reported it now appears the committee will include one athletics director from each of the five power conferences -- SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12. CFP executive director Bill Hancock said this week at SEC Media Days that ADs are now eligible.

Former coaches, players and media members are also possibilities. Commissioners are not eligible.

The playoff committee details for the 2014 season continue to be deliberated. Hancock said there is no rush. Committee members could meet one or two times this fall, with identifies possibly being announced during the season or around Jan. 1, he said.

"It's important that we get this right and we will," Hancock said. "There will be 11 more committees to follow, but it's very important to get the first one right."

Hancock said the working concept is for committee members to serve around three-year terms, but they would have to be staggered initially. There might have to be a four-year term initially to get the staggered terms right.

The current working concept is committee members will be expected to stay at home each week and watch games on TV, Hancock said. "Obviously a sitting AD would have to go to games," he said. "For the rest of them, they'd have video for every game."

Hancock's estimates on the number of committee members have varied over the past year. His current estimate is 12 to 18.

"There's a school of thought that lower would be better, but there's also a school of thought we want to be as inclusive as possible," Hancock said. "Those who favor lower say a smaller group may be more cohesive. But you have to pay attention to geography and pay attention to each of those groups we want. At the end of the day, we may say 12 doesn't get us enough of the piece of the pie."

Slightly more than 100 names were submitted for consideration to the committee, with most mentioned between two and five times, Hancock said.

"I bet if you could see the list, there wouldn't be more than two or three people where you would say, 'Who is that?'" Hancock said. "They would be people you would know and fans all around the country would know."

Hancock said committee members will not reveal their ballots and a chairman and the executive director will serve as spokesmen. The working concept is to mirror the process like the NCAA men's basketball selection committee with a series of ballots. A current athletics director would be recused from discussing his team or voting for it.

Another significant question is how often to release the committee's playoff rankings during a season. Presumably, the Associated Press and coaches' polls will continue, creating a different set of public rankings that aren't part of the playoff selection process.

Currently, the Bowl Championship Series rankings are released seven times before the final standings.

"The real benefit is the meaning it adds to the regular season," Hancock said. "Fans have to watch games all around the country. I would tend to think there would be somewhere between the range of three to four meetings (by the playoff committee)."

On the other hand, releasing the committee's rankings during the season could box in the committee before teams' full bodies of work. Would committee members feel like they can't move a team down once it has been publicly ranked high? Hancock said "absolutely not" but there is concern over that.

"There's two schools of thought: the benefit-of-the-game thought and the boxed-in school of thought," Hancock said. "The other thing is how valid are rankings on Oct. 15? We've seen in the BCS standings there just isn't enough data by Oct. 15. So the first ranking every year has to be taken with that understanding that things will change."

Hancock said factors in choosing the teams will include record, strength of schedule, conference championships, and factors that might have influenced a team's play, such as injuries and weather.

The selection committee won't have a trial run during the 2013 season.

"I see that people think there might be some benefit to it," Hancock said. "Almost certainly, the results would come out. We're going to have a BCS Championship Game and those two teams don't need people to say if they had a committee, they wouldn't be there. We fully believe we're going to have plenty of time after the first of the year to give them all the practice they need."